Hampshire Police Federation Backs Plans To Reopen Front Desks

HAMPSHIRE Police is reopening front desks – in a move fully backed by Hampshire Police Federation.

Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones said she was setting aside £2million in her budget to reopen police counters in Hampshire to increase police visibility.

The front desk will open at Portsmouth Central Police Station in autumn and the sale of Gosport Police Station has also been halted, Ms Jones said.

The Gosport police station will reopen with public access.

Ms Jones said: “The public have told me they want more police stations, more police officers and more visibility of the police.”

Zoe Wakefield, Chair of Hampshire Police Federation, said: “I think it’s a massive step. I think we’ve lost contact with a lot of our communities when we’ve lost that many front desks that people can’t walk into a local police station. I think it’s a massive bonus. Obviously we were forced into selling a lot of police stations during the austerity years. Fortunately some of our buildings never sold, so we’ve still got them. Now fortunately the PCC’s taken that opportunity to reopen them and move some operational teams back into some of these buildings, so it can only be seen as a positive, I think. Hopefully in those areas those communities will feel more connected with the police.

“Our new Chief Constable Scott Chilton is very, very focused on neighbourhood policing and the importance of it, and really wants us to get back into communities, listening to what they want and actually having the resources to actually tackle the problems they identify.”

Chief Constable Scott Chilton added: “The plans for Portsmouth announced by the Commissioner today have my full support and, together with 650 extra officers and our commitment to have a named police officer in every community, show that we mean business.”